Menu

As I am waiting for the decided upon hour (minute) to arrive to go off turkey hunting I figure I might as well remind you one last time about the application period for antlerless permits. The application process began last Wednesday and continues to June 20…for some of you that is a long time, for others it isn’t.

Weasel and I decided we would group up and apply for a CWMU unit for cow elk, rather than take a chance on drawing another unit that would coincide with the muzzy deer hunt where we like to hunt.

Why? There are more permits available for this CWMU than the general area that was considered and secondly, it’s an “almost guarantee” of getting an elk on the CWMU, IF we draw. No draw means more points for future draws…we now have 3 points.

The biggest drawback to the CWMU, as I see it, is the hunting dates. It is left up to the CWMU land owner and his help to determine when to call us to come up for the hunt. Which isn’t a bad thing, because usually when they call it’s because the animals are there and generally causing problems for them. The issue with me is “planning”…I like to know ahead of time when the hunt will take place and by accepting this tag I am at the mercy of the others and must accept the fact that I might have to go hunting “in the morning”, when the call comes on the night before.

If it means a freezer full of super good meat, well I must sacrifice. Much like “Grog”, who got wakened by “Sluff” to grab his club and try to intercept the migrating Trachodons. This had to be done before the fire went out, which meant gathering more wood as well.

Tomorrow is the last day of May…It is also the last day of the 2013 turkey season here in Utah….Not a time I wanted to see come without me having filled my tag…none the less…Weasel and I are heading out for our last day of hunting. What game changes are we going to employ? None! We are going to do exactly what we have been doing for the last several trips out. Why change now?

Those birds have done the same thing for the past several years and we have been trying to figure them out…so 3 trips ago we were on top of them and then outsmarted our selves and they went where they usually do. The last two trips we placed ourselves right where we needed to be and the birds didn’t come in…one day of rain…one day of no rain…what is with them? We don’t know, but we figure what the heck, do again what hasn’t worked yet. Maybe, just maybe they will come through and we will get a shot.

At any rate, it’s the last day of the season and by golly, we are going to be there!

There are three types of hunters that hunt turkeys…the early birds who end up shooting their birds the first few days and then they go to bragging and saying how easy it is to bag turkeys….The middle hunters who say they have given it enough tries to make them feel like they have given all they could and didn’t fill their tags…and then there are us two…Die hard hunters, who say it ain’t over yet! It ain’t over until the sun sets and the guide book forces us to quit for the year!

So, at 3 a.m. I’ll be prying myself out of my warm and cozy bed and heading for the top of that one hill, about 200 yards above the roosting birds! And there I’ll sit until the Weasel says it’s time to go, or darkness overcomes us once again!

Dang it! It’s bird time! Give us a shot!

Bears Butt

May 30, 2013…for May 31, 2013, but more will come to this post tomorrow after we get back! Wish us luck!

THE NEXT DAY…NOONISH…

As before, the morning alarm didn’t ring as I was awake 15 minutes before it was set to go off…I’m up and excited to get to the blind. There is something in the air this morning…The coffee is tasting exceptionally good to me and with the second cup, I’m down at the Weasels waiting patiently 10 minutes before I told him I’d be there.

We were both excited to be heading out for the last day of the turkey season and we had very high hopes at the outcome. Our conversation turned from “wonder if anyone else has hunted in there since last week” to “do you think the birds have gotten back into their routine”? And everything else in between.

I actually can only think of a couple of places that my minds eye tells me I was driving and suddenly there we were at the hunting site. Scrambling to get down to the blinds. The morning light was ahead of where it should be…our mistake for forgetting the clock does not tell the sun what to do.

At the blinds Weasel says he wants to be in a spot where he can see the fly down if it happens below us and so he is set up about 20 yards to my extreme right and down the hill a bit. I am comfy in my blind, with lots and lots of cover. My only issue was my hydration pack had leaked down my back and my whole backside, butt included, was soaking wet…it did not make for a very warm morning wait…but I soon got used to it.

The wind blew quite a bit this morning and I was beginning to think the birds just might be out in the open more than usual. However, not being a very adept turkey hunter, I was only guessing. I thought about how tall the grass was now and what do turkeys do with tall grass? Does it bother them at all? I was sitting there “not moving” and listening to the morning erupt…we have a new batch of cows in the area living among the turkeys this morning. Their beds were all about my watch area, but they themselves were down in the valley below. The valley that Weasel was watching for the fly down.

The sun was fully up when I heard my first morning gobble. It was fairly close and to my extreme left and down hill. After the second gobble, I decided I should let out a single hen yelp to let him know a seductive little critter was perched above him on the hill. He responded to the call perfectly and I felt great satisfaction in knowing that I had finally done something “turkey right”. I set the call down and forgot about it. My mind telling me, “he knows exactly where you are and will come as soon as he gets out of the tree”.

An hour passes and soon the Weasel is knocking my blind down to tell me he has seen a gobbler fly down on an opposite hill and that he is going in pursuit! I wish him luck and tell him I’m staying right here until he comes back to get me and I’m not leaving a minute sooner.

I keep looking over toward the hillside where Weasel said he saw the bird land and all of a sudden, I see it…pecking the ground and otherwise doing turkey stuff. I decided I would see if my hen call would get his attention. He is over 400 yards away and up wind from me. I let out a slow and seductive series of yelps…UP came his head and he was looking right at me! I was surprised and I thought maybe if I can keep his attention, Weasel may be able to sneak in for a shot. I kept yelping about every three minutes and soon he forgot about me and went back to eating and walking off. Well I had his attention for a minute. I also watched the Weasel slowly sneaking along, about 100 yards above and behind the gobbler…suddenly the gobbler took off on a dead run away and was gone in a flash…followed closely by a hen doing the same thing! BUSTED!!!!! But Weasel didn’t know it.

My attention then came back to my immediate surroundings. I had to re-familiarize myself with my area. There are my 30 yard flowers, blowing softly in the breeze…There is the 50 yard patch of brush…Hey, there are 5 deer feeding down there about 100 yards to my left and below me. It’s way cool to see deer this time of year. Sometimes they look really rough as they are shedding their winter coats and other times they look really slick and getting fat…all five of these deer looked slick and fat.

Suddenly the two deer in the back of the group pop up their heads and look my way…but not right at me…more off to my left and behind me. I think, I wonder if another deer is coming up behind me and I slowly turn my head to my left as far as I can and then continue to move my eyes over to the far left of my eye sockets….BAM…a red head! It’s a turkey and not just a turkey…It’s a gobbler…maybe a 7 inch beard…it takes a step from my left towards my right (making it much better to see than with my eyes smashed against the side of my sockets)…It stops and is looking down at the deer…I am frozen and time stands still. The bird pecks the ground one time and then pops up its head and looks right into my eyes…I don’t blink…I don’t move…I don’t…..

It takes another step forward and keeps me pinned down and then it turns to look at the deer again. I already have my right thumb on the safety and my left hand under the fore stock of the shotgun, but the gun is resting on my blind and not up to my shoulder…had I expected a turkey to come from that direction I would have been more prepared, but I thought they would come in front and from the right, not from behind and left. I slid the safety off and it made an ever so soft “click”, the bird spun its head in my direction and then opened its mouth as if to say…”Wholy Chit Man!!!”…It took a quick step forward just as I quickly raised the shotgun to my shoulder, it launched into flight and flapped one time as the gun blast tore through the air! A huge pile of flying feathers filled the air and the bird did a cartwheel to my left and down….I was up in a flash, jumped the blind and jacked another shell into the chamber and approached what I knew I would find…a big pile of turkey…nothing…nothing…nothing anywhere…this can’t be…I blew it up! It was only 10 yards away at the farthest when I shot…It has to be dead…maybe it’s down there…nope…maybe it’s closer than I thought…nope…under that rock ledge, that big bush….ripping through all the brush I could see around there and nothing…not even a single feather could be found! I saw the bird go down, and in a heap too…where in the heck….

I continued to look under and in everything imaginable on that open hillside and then soon here came the Weasel and the two of us combed the hill side in every direction for over an hour. I readdressed my position and where the bird was, what the bird did, my last sight of it going side over side toward the ground…nothing! We started close to the blind and moved away in small circles and ended up over 300 yards from the blind and still not a feather. My heart sank when I finally had to give in that the bird probably hit the ground, ducked low in the tall grass and ran like the dickens to get out of there and I didn’t see it running away. My hunt is over.

Last year I bought a special box of shells just for turkey hunting and the box only contained 5 shells, each shell costing $5. A special blend that makes turkey turn into mush when you hit them. I was using one of those shells this morning. When I bought those shells I named each one of them.

This morning I was using “Boss Buster”, the top one in the box…I think I misnamed it:

And so, there is the end of the 2013 turkey hunt for Weasel and Bears Butt…we had a really good time…saw lots and lots of game animals…one strange little green snake and most of all, we got some great lessons from those gobblers! Look out next year! We are going to bust some heads!

Bears Butt

May 31, 2013

Adding more at a later date:

I have mulled over my shot at this turkey now for four days and I have come to a conclusion…I missed the bird!

My thoughts on having hit the bird, causing its death and not being able to recover it, is a haunting thought. And so, I have been thinking very hard about the entire event. I have gone over and over and over the play by play actions of myself and the bird and have come to this conclusion.

What my minds eye said I saw could not have happened. What I saw was the bird “explode” into a pillow sized scattering of feathers and roll right over left as it plummeted toward the ground not 10 yards from my blind.

What I believe to be the truth is this:

The bird was only about 5 yards away and walking on my extreme left side and yes he was gaining some “out in front of me” distance, but was still very much on my extreme left side. When he finally decided I was something he didn’t want to be that close to, he launched himself up and away. His path was away from me going left and down the hill. My last visual on him was a large mass of feathers as I fired the shotgun.

I have to say, I have felt my shoulder and I have a non-visual bruise on my right bicep…what does that mean? I did not have the gun into my shoulder, it was on my arm when I fired. I could not have had the gun sights anywhere near my right eye…I shot instinctively, and did not aim at all.

My shotgun patterns high. This I know because we patterned it before Conners hunt last year and it shoots quite high at 30 yards. Any shot taken with this shotgun must be low with the rear of the two barrel pins being the only one visible to the shooter.

As the bird lifted off the ground, I only recall seeing two wing beats before I pulled the trigger. The bird could not have been more than 10 yards out at that moment and probably closer than that. Had I hit the bird, the shot cup would have been planted firmly in a part of the birds anatomy that would have rendered it impossible to even fart. The bird would have been laying there very much dead. The shot could not have had a chance to have spread at all, as it would have still been firmly planted inside the shot cup.

The bird lifted up off the ground, but the ground itself was sloping down and away at a pretty good angle, perhaps 10 percent. The bird disappeared from my visual right after the recoil was felt, and I do recall feeling it. That in and of itself should have told me that I did not have the gun to my shoulder when I fired, as the shooter usually does not feel a shot when it’s taken at a game animal. What I thought was feathers flying everywhere was most likely his tail as it turned to fly around the hill in the direction it had walked and it’s right wing as it lifted and rolled in that direction.

What I thought was it rolling right over left was just that, a flight maneuver to “get out of Dodge” quickly. Tail guidance and wing control, both in unison to guide it hard left and down the mountain. When I jumped from the blind, had I looked down the mountain to the last visual edge I probably would have seen it gliding down and out of sight. But my focus was on the spot it should have been laying dead.

We found no feathers on the ground and no evidence that a bird had fallen and puffed up the dirt or bloodied up the grass. That is because I missed the bird and it flew down and away to safety.

I missed! It’s as plain and simple as that. A very close call on what should have been a dead turkey and a smarter bird for sure still lives on.

I was just informed about a wonderful survival type web site that has a lot of merit! It is not just a survival site, it is a site that carries what YOU NEED! At home and in your vehicle. Imagine you are in your vehicle, out hunting or going on a camping or hiking trip and you are far from any road that might have someone else traveling on. Suddenly you have a flat tire and you discover far too late that your spare is also flat! Now What? It’s getting on to dark and you don’t have any of the things you will need to be stuck out there all night. No sleeping bag…no extra water…no food…no matches…no toilet paper. Your cell phone doesn’t work because you don’t have reception and now you are really in a quandary. Way too far from the nearest road and now you have to try and improvise to help make it through the night. AND you know you are going to be very hungry in the morning!

This site has just what you are going to need….the Wolvermouse 1 day pack! It has everything to help make your overnight stay a good one and even put some good memories in the bank with your loved ones who are with you on this now “adventure”!

“Hey dad, remember when we had that flat tire up on Long Ridge that time and you pulled out the pack with all the food and stuff in it? Remember? That was a great night to be stuck out in the woods…I’ll never forget that, and we survived just fine with all that food and stuff.”

And the site sells other great stuff as well. Things like way cool and functional tents that set up in seconds and even a stove to fit inside it for those really cold nights. They sleep four people and more! Store away so small they hardly take up any room in the truck and are just plain great.

Water and food storage packages for weeks of endless food at over 2,000 calories p/person per day! Incredible! And it’s NOT EXPENSIVE at all! If you get caught in an emergency some day, don’t say I didn’t warn you and tell you about a great site that is selling some wonderful food stuff that will help you come through the crisis in flying colors! Their motto is “Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda”…You shoulda contacted them and bought some supplies. If you woulda contacted them you wouldn’t be in the mess you are in right now. And you will be kicking yourself in the rear end because you coulda done just that!

This site is a work in progress, so save it in your bookmarks and check back often to see what new has been posted up. Loads of interesting and very useful stuff is on there right now, but more is coming daily!

But don’t just look at it, order up some products to help you and your family through the next emergency situation! You will thank me later!

Click on this site link and it will take you right to their home page…”Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda”! And now you Cana!

They have a “contact us” section on the site that you can ask them questions etc. and that is very useful, but at times you want an answer right away, so here is the cell phone to get hold of someone right now (not right now, here in a minute), I mean “right now”!!!!

Well, well, well…I’ve never been much for sitting and watching the TV, but there is a show that comes on that is a real fun one to watch…Duck Dynasty…Sherry will record it on the DVR and then when we get around to it and don’t have anything else to do, we watch the shows back to back until we are caught up.

I still don’t have all the names of the characters memorized, but the show is a real hoot…those boys sure know how to have fun and the sayings they can come up with or the logic behind them are my kind of thing. I guess across the nation there are thousands of people who can relate to one of them or another.

Well, thanks to “Camo Princess”, I’ve come to find out there is another show that is very much similar that just began to show. You can find it on the Discovery Channel and it has to do with drilling for oil in your back yard. Well, the show takes place in Kentucky and the only episode trailer I have watched has my interest peaked! Here again some down home folks just trying to hit it big time without doing much work.

Backyard Oil is the name of the series and it sure looks like a fun one!

I thought of a phrase this morning and just where it might have originated. To some of you I’m sure you know all about this phrase and where it came from and what it all means, but I did not, at least until just a few minutes ago.

“Cock and Bull”…We all know that it means a very big story has been told and a story that is totally out in left field, far from being anything close to the truth.

Well, in my search, I actually found an English society that welcomes new guests, it costs nothing and they have an email newsletter that comes out whenever it comes out. So, since I too am inclined to stretch some stories a bit, I joined them, and anxiously await my approval into their organization. www.cockandbull.org.uk, if you too are inclined to visit their site.

My sources took me all over the place and I have to gather enough info from each of the sources to make my mind up as to what is true and what is cock and bull and this is what I have “condensed” about how Cock and Bull came to be.

I have to cheat some with some notes I had to take, because I’m not familiar with England and where these cities are located, but from my study, somewhere deep in the interior of England (the country), as equally far from any large ocean type water as can be gotten, is a town called, Stony Stratford. This name lends itself to be more of a mans name than that of a city, but none the less, that is what it is called. Perhaps we should go visit it some day.

So, way back when, in a time when there were no cars, only walking, horses or buggies and the like were used to get people from points A to B (sort of reminds you of Sir Butt doesn’t it?), the roads all seemed to come to a crossing point in this town of Stony Stratford. Here the riders would disembark from their carriages and get on others to take them to their other points, but it was also a place where the travellers could refresh themselves, get something to eat and also to parch their powerful dries! Thus the two pubs in town.

I picture these pubs across the street from each other, but I have no proof of that, only in my mind do they exist there. When the travellers would enter they would of course order up an ale or whatever and set to enjoy their draught and talk to the locals. The locals were always willing to hear the stories of where these people were coming from and going to and to also hear a bit about them in general. (Again this all sounds like something out of a Sir Butt story).

Well these stories would get rather stretched at times and with a few more ales would even get larger than life. I imagine the locals having a very good time with the stories, especially after the travellers had gone on their way. “Hey Joe, did you here that bloke tell me about that fish he caught out of the Tweed last week?”

And on it goes.

In the other establishment the same thing was happening and then the patrons of the two pubs would cross the street and begin to tell what they had just heard in the other establishment. You will never believe the names of the two pubs….”The Famous Cock Hotel” and “The Innfamous Bull”.

In America with our wealth of intermixed races and cultures, it is not at all unfathomable to take this Cock and Bull story and condense it down to just a Bull Session. I’d have used another word there, but this is a family site you know. But then by my definition, a Bull Session takes at least two people to pull off and so here I sit by myself typing away and it is a true story as far as I’m concerned.

I am making my plans for the week and the weather is always in the mix. Locally it looks like we will have a very pleasant day today and then as we sleep a sneaky little storm is going to come in and begin raining on us. That is to happen tomorrow morning, all day tomorrow and all day Wednesday…hmmm…my plans for outdoor activities is beginning to change rapidly because of this.

I want to get out turkey hunting at least one more time before the season ends on Friday…Tuesday is out…Wednesday is out…what about Thursday? Maybe Friday? Decisions will be made at a later time for that.

But, in looking at the weather I’m just glad I don’t live in the North East…3 feet of SNOW in upstate New York! I have friends that live in that area and I hope they are all well and warm!

Enjoy your Memorial Holiday folks! Go visit a grave site and say a prayer or two.

Fat Duck sent this to me through an email and I just have to share it with you on here. The picture shows a pretty girl sitting in a chair reading an advertisement or something and her “obvious” boyfriend is leaning over her, arms wrapped around her neck and is reading what ever it is that has their attention. Very cute!

But wait! Look again! Isn’t it he that is sitting in the chair and she leaning on him?

Yesterday I received a reminder notice from the Utah DWR on applying for antlerless permits. It seems too early in the year to be thinking about the Fall hunting, but by knowing ahead of time whether you have a tag or not allows you to make your plans and do some scouting etc. AND if you are a working person, you have time to convince the boss that you need some time off.

Looking over the doe deer permits, it looks like there are a few locally, but they all fall into private property and for some reason they changed one of the boundaries to exclude a nice little walk in access area that I like to go to. I have friends who also like to go into that area, but that is out for this year. So, if you are inclined to put in for the doe tags for the Bear River Bottoms area, please make sure you have access to the private property before you apply.

So, with doe tags out of the question for me, I looked into the cow elk tags. Now, elk meat is wonderful eating, to say the least, but bagging an elk is difficult for me, mostly because I don’t know elk. The only one I have ever shot was sort of by accident. But they are allowing quite a few cow elk tags for this year, at least locally, and they also allow you to fill that tag if you are hunting an earlier season in the same area as your tag. So, during the muzzy deer season, I could shoot my cow elk if the opportunity came up, as long as I used my muzz rifle to do it, and I was hunting in the same area as my cow elk tag called for. In my case, the muzz hunt area and the cow elk area cover mostly the same area.

I asked the boss, Sherry, about it and she gave me a thumbs up on applying. So, that will be my plan…I’ll put in for the earlier of the two hunts being held in that area, which also has the most tags available. Should I draw, my attention would be mostly on bagging the cow elk rather than hunting mostly for deer. I have a couple of spots in mind for hunting the elk as they are water holes with lots of elk tracks around them. Early morning and late evenings are the most likely times for an elk to come wandering into those spots. But, there are also a lot of deer that frequent those same watering holes. Sounds like a plan doesn’t it? The hardest part will be getting a tag.

For some of my hunting buddies, you might be interested in knowing that there are also quite a few doe antelope permits for that same hunting area! Have you ever wanted to shoot one of those speed goats while hunting deer? We stop very often when we see them and it gets under some of your skin to be wasting time when you know they aren’t deer that you are seeing!

Since this is a long weekend for most people and a holiday at that, Memorial Day, I thought it appropriate to post up something that will most likely happen to a lot of people this weekend.

Those who go fishing will most likely snag up a time or two and if not, they are dang lucky. Several years ago when the Willard Bay was way low, I went tripping around the shoreline looking for treasures and I found quite a few.

Things like broken fishing rods, lost items over the sides of boats (most were worthless), a headlamp that worked after I got the sand out of the inside of it and put in new batteries, a portable 3 step boat ladder, two small 10 pound anchors…you get the idea…neat stuff. But the most incredible thing I found I put on my garage wall for a day when I could do something else with it.

Well, yesterday I did something else with it. First off I went to the local Deseret Industries thrift store and found a really cool letter and key holder, the kind that has a cork side piece for putting notes on. I thought it would make a nice display case for my masterpiece.

Here it is!

So, you are probably unfamiliar with the cave at this time and won’t recognize what has been added. This has been added:

I probably won’t use the letter holders or the key hooks and so it will be just another “picture” hanging on my otherwise bare walls. It sure is nice to have a room where I can plant anything I want, anywhere on the wall, high, low or in between.

So, this is my best find to date and I doubt I’ll find anything better than this.

A nice tangle of crank baits, spoons, jigs, sinkers, line and hooks. Class!

Some of you laughed at the speech I gave yesterday about laughing in the face of pain! The pain that comes from a long, steep hike in the mountains and climbing from an altitude of 5380 ft above sea level to 6552 ft above sea level.

I too thought that this morning I would be in some pain from that hike and expected my muscles to be sore and stiff. However, when I awoke this morning I had no such pains. NONE!

Perhaps the past three or four weeks of climbing up and down the mountains in pursuit of a turkey has paid off in bigger dividends than the actual shooting of a turkey. And besides the chase, the physical endurance, past pains and general workout that the hunting has put me through has me feeling pretty good about my 63..almost 64 year old body.

Do I think I want to tackle the Himalayas? Not even close. But I sure wouldn’t hesitate to take off on another 9 miler to the top of Grizzly Peak one of these days! If you recall, I only made it to marker 6 with Mitch a couple of years ago. I think now I could make it all the way to the top! Maybe there are turkeys along that trail!?!